San Cristobal Island
After navigating through the night, we arrived today to the northeastern end of San Cristobal Island and began our day with a Zodiac ride along this volcanic coast. We observed all three species of boobies: red-footed booby, Nazca booby and blue-footed booby all together in the same islet, right at the edge of the water we saw Galápagos sea lions, magnificent and great frigate birds, as well as brown noddy terns, and brown pelicans. After looking at all these species of animals from our Zodiacs, we then went ashore and climbed up along a dry, old creek to a place where we found red-footed boobies nesting; there we also saw some flying in the strong wind we had today. Far in the distance we observed some large splashes and for our surprise, there were lots of common dolphins jumping up high and playing in the waves. We spent several minutes delighted by the sight of these playful marine mammals and then started to return to the shore for a good swim in the nice warm waters on Punta Pitt.
For the afternoon we went deep water snorkeling along the cliffs of León Dormido; there we swam with schools of fish and even juvenile hammerhead sharks showed off for a few minutes, there were also some colorful sea stars, barnacles, sea urchins, sponges, and soft orange cup corals along the wall. We had a lot of fun snorkeling around this islet. After snorkeling we navigated around León Dormido as the sun was slowly disappearing under the horizon, it was a great way to end our week here in Galápagos.
